Ex-Curry College soccer coach killed in Iraq

Army Staff Sgt. Robb Rolfing, a 29-year-old Green Beret, died Saturday from small-arms enemy fire in Baghdad. He was once a player in the nation’s top amateur men’s soccer league and served as assistant coach at Curry College in Milton in 2001 and 2002 before joining the Army.

Rolfing, once a player in the nation’s top amateur men’s soccer league, was assistant coach at Curry College in Milton in 2001 and 2002. He left to join the Army.

“9/11 is really what triggered it,” his father, Rex Rolfing, recalled in a telephone conversation yesterday from the family’s home in Sioux Falls, S.D. “He was just a very patriotic young man and knew that’s where things were happening and he liked to be where things were happening.”

The 29-year-old Army staff sergeant died Saturday from small-arms enemy fire in Baghdad. He was assigned as a special forces engineer with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) based in Fort Carson, Colo.

He was on his second tour in Iraq and had been there since March.

“He was very intelligent, very athletic – he was exactly the kind of person you picture as a Green Beret,” his father said. “He was doing exactly what he wanted to do. He loved being in the action and if he wasn’t doing it in Iraq he would have been doing it somewhere else.”

Rolfing played soccer for four years at Vassar College in New York, where he graduated in 1998, then coached at Rollins College in Florida, his father said.

Rolfing started as assistant coach at Curry in 2001. That same year, Rolfing played for the inaugural Sioux Falls SpitFire in the Premier Development League, the highest level amateur league of the United Soccer Leagues in the United States and Canada.

His brother, Todd, also played for the club and later played professionally. Rolfing’s father was a member of the ownership group and a team executive.

“We are deeply saddened by this news,” the executive vice president of the United Soccer Leagues, Tim Holt, said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at this difficult time.”

Rolfing knew his playing days were almost up, his father said, so he coached at Curry to stay close to the game.

“He loved soccer. That’s why he coached,” he said.

Family and friends have pulled together in the last two days to remember Rolfing, the young man who wanted to be a Green Beret long before he dreamt of being a soccer star.

Rolfing’s father said he wants one message to get out about his son: “He loved his country and he was fighting to protect our freedom so that you can do exactly what you’re doing right now.”